Who is responsible for the children left behind when mothers go to prison? When mothers go to prison, the children are left with a close family member. In case there are no close family members willing to take the child, the state steps in and takes responsibility. The state may decide to place him or her in a foster home. Who takes care of the children? Children will be cared for by a close family member such as an uncle, aunt, or grandparent. In cases where a family member cannot take care of the child, the state takes care of the child. The state then places them in a foster home. If there is more than one child, this can result in them being separated. Should pregnant women be incarcerated? Defend your answer. On the topic of pregnant women being incarcerated, I stand in the middle. There is a part of me that believes pregnant women must face incarceration …show more content…
Being in the year twenty-sixteen, everyone is fighting for the equality of both sexes, so let us treat both sexes the same. If you commit a crime, you must be punished, regardless of your gender, or whatever, you wish to identify as. Sometimes I feel sympathy for pregnant women who are being or are already incarcerated, which leads me to say why pregnant women should not be incarcerated. Women who give birth in prison cost the state much more money than if the woman had given birth in a hospital before being incarcerated. There is already a price a state must pay for an inmate to be housed and treated ‘equally’. If I had the power to do so, I would not let women who are pregnant become incarcerated, just yet. I would wait until women give birth on the outside before locking them up. After three-to-five days have passed, women must be placed in the proper facility. This would save the state some money and will have one less issue to worry about. Should mothers in prison be allowed to keep their babies with them? Defend you
Social agency and the court authorizing the placement, and caregivers are responsible for the continuing monitoring to ensure that the child in placement receives adequate care and supervision (Downs, Moore and McFadden, 2009, p.275). Services for children in foster care are a teamwork effort of the different parties involved (Downs, Moore and McFadden, 2009). Unfortunately in Antowne’s situation the agency and the court system failed him because although he was removed from his mother, the abuse and neglect continued. The systems involved did not provide the safety net Antwone needed.
This article describes the similarities and parallelism of the foster system to the prison systems and how they perpetuate and are influenced by each other. It describes how these systems commodify and dehumanize these human beings, especially women who receive long, severe sentences for minor offenses and are thus denied ability to parent their child from behind bars. This, thus, affects the child in the short and long term because these children are taken from their mothers by the state, often put into foster care, in which the state then refuses to take care of these motherless children. This then leads to social workers developing more aggressive and hostile tactics when dealing with these types of cases, because often the children must scavenge the streets in order to survive and become troubled by the social realities they face. The author then begins to discuss how the welfare system becomes heavily involved with these families, along with the stigmatizations government assistance is attached with. . It is unfortunate that this article only very briefly discusses pregnant, black incarcerated women, and the lack of prenatal care they are provided with during
In order to keep the court from being involved, the parent would have to agree to voluntary placement of the children with a relative (child welfare information gateway, 2016). These situations occur when child welfare finds signs of neglect or abuse that’s not severe enough for the state to take custody or the parent needs to receive some sort of treatment (imafoster.com, 2014). The children often remain in the care of the relative until the parents complete their treatment plans and satisfies the court so that the children can be returned to them. If the parent fails to complete their treatment plans, the kinship caregiver has the option to take permanent managing conservatorship of the children. The caregiver is given the option to take foster care classes in order to receive financial compensation for the children in their care. The state typically provides some form of financial compensation when the children are initially placed and CPS assists with clothing and gifts for the children while they are under their care. Legal and medical decisions regarding the children are left to the caregiver with oversight from the placing
In the reading by Lynne Haney, “Motherhood as Punishment: The Case of Parenting in Prison”, Haney decided to focus on analyzing a facility that allows mothers to parent from prison. She analyzed what it meant for mothers to have to parent in prison. Specifically she wanted to investigate why it seemed that this program seemed to promise a new alternative, in order to reunify family. However, through her observations she saw that motherhood was being undermined and if anything the mothers had less power, even though the program promised more. She specifically discusses four main points in the article that are as follows: Motherhood is undermined, subsumed, punished, and finally how she observed parenting from mass incarceration.
As a woman, the experience of pregnancy and preparing to bring a new life into this world is, in general, an incredibly exciting time, unless of course, you are one of thousands of women incarcerated in the United States, serving prison time for felony convictions.
The video Prison Moms was eye opening to the plight of women while pregnant as members of a correctional institution. This documentary focused on Pennsylvania based programs at Riverside correctional facility. The 2009 sentencing project study found that one out of every forty-three kids has a parent in prison and that sixty-five thousand and six hundred mothers were incarcerated as of 2007. The program offers a full-time staff Monday through Friday that work specifically with pregnant inmates and mother within the prison population with children under the age of three. This staff also works with the mother and the caregiver of the child outside of the corrections facility to keep the family unit “together”. The video also stated that eighty
For many prisons there facilities aren’t adequate for the pregnant women that are being held there. In a state survey it was found that less then 50% of facilities have written policies specifically relating to medical care for pregnant women and only 48% offer prenatal services. Only 21% offer prenatal counseling and 15% offer counseling to help mothers find suitable placements for their infants after birth. Women that are in the system do not receive regular pelvic exams or sonograms, that they receive little to no education about prenatal care and nutrition, that they have the inability to alter their diets to suit their changing caloric needs, and that they could be shackled during delivery and can not have labor support from family members. There are many reasons why pregnant women should have alternatives.
When it comes to abortion I believe that it should always be left up to the woman to make the decision on whether to keep her baby or not. Having a baby is no eas...
Imagine waking up everyday in a home where there is nobody you can call mom or dad. Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home, or private home of a state-certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent". The placement of the child is usually arranged through the government or a social-service agency. The institution, group home or foster parent is compensated for expenses. The state will inform through the family court and child protection agency stand in loco parentis to the minor, making all legal decisions while the foster parent is responsible for the day-to-day care of the minor throughout the time the child is in the system.
... or until the child is old enough to leave home and fend for itself. The problem of stabbing the serial killer versus aborting the fetus to save the mother’s life is another scenario where I can see opposition. The serial killer knew he was committing and evil act and meant to do harm while the fetus is innocent and intended to hurt no one.
According to a factsheet by The Sentencing Project (2012), more than 200,000 women are incarcerated, including those in local jails. In addition, out of these 200,000 women “1 in 25 women in state prisons and 1 in 33 in federal prisons are pregnant when admitted to prison.” Due to their sentencing, many of these women are forced to give birth while incarcerated. Then days later are separated from their newborn to finish their sentencing. More mothers end up in jails than fathers, and men do not have to worry about bringing their future child into a jail cell like many women do. Granted they may leave their family behind, including a pregnant wife, but they do not have to worry about the care of another human being inside of them while they are behind bars.
A pregnant women committed a crime and must serve a 10 ten prison sentence, she is at a crossroads with what to do with the baby, keep it in jail with her or let it die on the streets? The choice is obvious. Mothers should be able to have their babies with them in prison due to a variety of reasons. Having their babies with them in prison helps with the early mother-child bonding that is crucial for the lifelong success of the child, it helps the mother become a better person while reducing the recidivism rate, and because the mothers can raise their children in a safer environment compared to the streets with no assistance.
It is saddening to see humans of the female gender, who find themselves in a situation that requires introducing a new life into the world; to abort such a precious gift. Many may wonder how these poor, innocent, unborn children are then discarded after the abortion procedure. One cannot fathom the reason of these gruesome murders that happens within these medical facilities. Babies are disposed in the red waste bins of these facilities, and later incinerated. Some may either be flushed down garbage disposals or even be sold off for research purposes. The issue of abortion is not just a social one, but also a human rights issue among the unborn children. I believe if the human rights of these children has been violated, then all other rights of humans are certainly meaningless.
There is also the argument that women who are raped or victims of incest should be forced to carry a child to full term and then give the child up for adoption. Statistics say that 1 in 3 women will be victims of rape or a sexually violent act but does this mean that 33% of women also should be forced to carry their violators child to term? It doesn’t seem fair that a woman loses her feelings of safety and loses her choice to say no and then also has to go through an unwanted pregnancy on top of it.(amplify, 2009)
I believe that abortion should be banned. I strongly feel that pregnant women who want to abort their child/fetus should not be allowed to. For one, should one person alone be allowed to control the fate of another? Technically, abortion is murder, since the baby is being killed purposely. Some say that in the early days or weeks of pregnancy (maybe even in the first couple months) the baby is in fact not alive; it is just a bunch of cells. However, the fetus is breathing, and obtaining nutrients from the mother before she even knows that she is pregnant. Within no time, the fetus also has human characteristics: a head, hands, legs, arms, feet, and a torso. Thus, abortion should be legalized only when murder becomes legal, because abortion is murder.